Barry Amundsen (23
Jan 2012)"For Randy again and
any others, clarifying my position and how I arrived there"

This is for Randy again and
any who may be struggling to understand my position
because I do understand where you are coming from
and I believe that you sincerely want to understand
about this and where one like me is coming from. http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/jan2012/barrya120.htm

I would like to share how
this difference happened to me to bring me from
where you are now to where I ended up on the other
side of this line.

As I said in my post (link
above) I grew up going to church in a Lutheran
church and was as good a Christian as I knew how to
be. One night in 1977 just after I graduated high
school, I was at a Keith Green concert.

Keith challenged the
audience that if you are a Christian yet God is not
a vital, living presence in your life every day,
then he was going to give us a chance to find out
what was wrong. I remember thinking, Huh, what are
you talking about, He’s not like that in anyone’s
life that I know, not even the pastors or whatever…?
But I was willing to see where Keith was going to go
with this. So Keith said he was going to give us a
time of silence during which he invited us to
silently pray and ask God what was in our life that
was coming between Him and us or that we have placed
ahead of Him that was keeping us from having the
relationship with Him that He wants. But Keith then
warned us not to participate in this if we knew that
we would not be willing to make a change in our life
once something was revealed because if there is
something, God will reveal it and if we are not
willing to give Him whatever He asks, then it would
be better not to know at all.

Well, I wanted to know if
there was anything but I sincerely didn’t think
there could be anything. So I prayed and immediately
God answered me and said that I loved my record
collection more than I loved Him and that if I
really wanted to know Him, I needed to give the
records to Him as a sacrifice and then I would have
a real relationship with Him.

When I heard that I was
stunned and shocked and horrified. First I was
amazed that He really was talking to me and second I
was amazed that there was something between me and
God and third I was amazed at how accurate He was
because I realized that my records were more
important to me than a relationship with God was. My
records were my life. They represented my goal in
life as a musician and everything that I aspired to
be and they were my friend and companion in all
areas of my life. To get rid of them was unthinkable
and I was devastated just as Keith warned would
happen if I was unwilling to make the change.

I couldn’t do it and I
begged God not to give up on me but I didn’t have
enough faith to go through with it then but I was
willing to be made willing. (Actually, that is not
technically accurate because as I said in my post,
God does give to every man the measure of faith to
complete any task He calls us to. It was my own
pride that made me unwilling to act on the faith and
be obedient. Faith that is acted on produces more
faith but faith that is not acted on will eventually
be lost altogether and be dead.) It took God a year
and a half to two years to finally bring me to be
able to do it. I can’t go all into how it happened
but when I finally did go through with it by taking
my records to the beach at night and burning them,
(and by this time my record collection had grown
considerably from when He had first asked for it as
well as my status as a local musician) then my
relationship with God really began. I died that
night. Prior to that night, I “believed” in Jesus
the way many Christians do. But I was not willing to
put my life where my mouth was. Many pastors and
teachers say that such a drastic thing is not
necessary for salvation but believing in Jesus and
that He died and rose for our sins is all that is
necessary. I already believed that part but I did
not trust Him with my life. I wanted my own will for
my life. This is what I believe James is referring
to as faith that has no action connected to it. If
God asks me for my records then why would I not give
them to Him? Only one reason, that I don’t trust
Him. Without faith it is impossible to please God.
When I burned those records that took faith and
faith cannot be faked. It was faith that led me to
be able to do it and in doing it virtue was added to
my faith the moment I did it. So that was when I
added to my faith virtue and to my virtue I soon
added knowledge etc. because now I was free to learn
from God and was hungry to know Him. Plus after
making that sacrifice, I was not willing to settle
for anything that was not true or not from God and I
began to see the difference everywhere. I understood
as I grew which teaching was not from God even
though it might be coming from some very highly
regarded and prominent teachers and pastors.

One of the things that
God promised me when I poured out my heart to Him
about why I was afraid to do this thing and I
complained that I was giving up what I knew for
something that I never really could learn, the
Bible… He promised that if I did this, then I
would be His disciple and He would teach me things
that even pastors and teachers didn’t know.

I did it and He has kept His
word. I have discovered what Jesus said in His
prayer to the Father about how God hides from some
and reveals to others:

Matthew 11:

25.At that
time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast
hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes.

26.Even
so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

27.All
things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no
man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he
to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

It is up to God to hide and
reveal and many teachers who seem to be wise and
many who seem to be prudent are in fact the very
sort that Jesus said the truth is hidden from. But
doesn’t it seem that wise is a good thing and
prudence is also a good thing? Why would God hide
things from these types of people? Because God wants
a relationship and these types would rather be in
charge of their lives and have not humbled
themselves to the will of God for their lives and
are therefore left to try and understand the Bible
with nothing but their own understanding to lead
them. This is also why there is so much division
among Christians and teachers and doctrines. If you
asked them they all would likely claim to be taught
by the Holy Spirit and they all claim to only teach
what the Bible says. Yet they contradict each other.
Is the Holy Spirit teaching them all and is being
this inconsistent? Of course not. Paul used this
very thing to illustrate who was a true follower of
Christ when he said

1 Corinthians 14:

37.If any
man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let
him acknowledge that the things that I write unto
you are the commandments of the Lord.

38.But if
any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.

In other words, the Holy
Spirit is not going to teach one thing to Paul and
something else to someone else but the same thing to
anyone who is learning from Him so Paul could
confidently make that statement. We must be
teachable by the Holy Spirit and then we will learn
the same thing Paul was teaching.

Except we become as little
children we cannot enter. We must become babes to be
taught. Therefore it is our own pride that stands in
the way of our being taught. This was the very thing
that caused Nicodemus so much difficulty. He had
learned his whole life things about the messiah
which Jesus told him were all wrong and needed to be
thrown out if he wanted to know the truth. And
Nicodemus said that’s like asking a man who is an
adult to get back into his mother’s womb and be born
all over again because I cannot just trade what I
have been taught for what you are now saying. That’s
why Jesus said the Holy Spirit will help but you
still must be willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s
help and it starts with you admitting that your own
way is no good. Deny yourself, take up your cross
and follow Me. This was Paul’s gospel too which he
said must not be changed or any other gospel is not
to be accepted to put it mildly. He called himself a
bondservant of Christ and said we are crucified with
Christ etc. Therefore, any gospel that makes Christ
do all the sacrificing and we do none but believe in
what He did I think is only half way there.

Ultimately we must each
decide which is right for us. I will not condemn
anyone for their position but I do like to at least
let you know what mine is and why.